Trigger Warning: Proceed With Caution

Monthly Archives: December 2012

There are 14 empty wine bottles lined up. One for every day since I left my boyfriend. They are a sad reminder that the last two weeks have been the longest of my life. Every night I have cried myself to sleep in the darkness, in the oblivion that alcohol provides to my torn soul. There is no escape from the wrenching pain of separation. No amount of starving or puking will stop me from being reminded that he did not love me enough. He did not love me enough to fight for us, to hold onto me, to stop me from leaving, to run after me, to come back for me. I am gone and he is missing from me. I am breaking down. No amount of love and support from my family and friends can stop the tirade of ED. It is all that fills the emptiness. It sings to me in the long, dark nights. It reminds me that I am not alone even though I am and the false comfort that it gives is all that matters right now. I devote myself to it with passion because it eases my broken heart when there is nothing else.

I have waited every day with bated breath for word from him. I have waited for him to come for me with arms open and a heart full of regret. He has not come. He never will. But, I wait. I keep waiting. Me, and my bottles of wine. Waiting for a man who doesn’t love me. Even though I know I deserve so much more. “The heart wants what it wants”.

In one of his last messages he asked me if I was eating. He told me that it pains him to know that I am not and that he is the cause of it. He is pained by causing me hurt. He is not pained that he has lost me. I cannot tell him that somehow he has lost sight of what really matters. Because I don’t matter. And I cannot live with that.

Every day without him is emptier than the one before. ‘Do not sacrifice what you want most for what you want now.’ What if he is one and the same?

This time last week I had a boyfriend. I went home at 10:30pm , took his face in my hands and kissed him. “That was our last kiss,” I told him. “I’m done. It’s enough now”.

He shrugged, “ok”.

And that was the end of three years of my life. Over in the blink of an eye, in the space of one kiss, in the half-hearted shrug of his shoulders. I think that was what hurt the most. That he let me go without one word of protest, without a fight, without tears, without a backward glance.

This week I am sleeping on the floor of a friend’s spare bedroom that is piled high with my boxes. It didn’t take long. In about three days I was packed up and moved out with all my worldly possessions. I am 3o years old and this is all I have to show for myself.

“At least you will get skinny on the break up diet,” my misinformed girlfriend tried to console me. Little does she know that there is no such thing as a ‘diet’ in the world of ED. After I broke up with him I didn’t eat for four days. Call it shock, stress, adrenaline or heartbreak. Now a week later I eat everything I can see and throw it all up right after. I drink at least a bottle of wine a night and cry myself to sleep. This break up has thrown ED into overdrive and it is the only coping mechanism that I have. At this point I no longer care if I starve or binge or puke. Whatever it takes to get through the day. A bottle of wine…two bottles of wine….

I left the man that I love because he does not love me.

I have over-analyzed his every move and every word in the last week and it is clear to me: he did not love me enough and I need to move on, but I can’t. Loving someone does not end over night. I want to phone him and see him and touch him and hold him even one last time. We were happy together. We had a great life together. I know that there was a future for us too. He didn’t see that. I could no longer wait for a 32-year-old man to grow up, to deal with his commitment issues, to walk away from his dysfunctional family. I could not longer wait for him to choose me. I had to walk away and in walking away I realized that he didn’t love me enough to stop me from leaving.

ED had reared it’s ugly head. Old friend, companion, comforter. In the loneliness, it is there. In the silence, it speaks. In the darkness it covers me. In the emptiness, it holds me close.